Mike Woods' News and Views: Packers have giant problems

Zack Greinke is the top free agent starting pitcher on the market this offseason and could get a contract for as much as $150 million.

Taking a spin around the sports world wondering how long it will be before Notre Dame students put a foam No. 1 finger on Touchdown Jesus.

News: The Packers are blown out by the New York Giants 38-10 on Sunday.

Views: To panic or not to panic? That is just one of the many questions surrounding what was a disastrous performance by the Packers.

Here's a reason not to panic. The Packers have six weeks to settle the disturbing issues on the offensive line and integrate into the lineup the return of Greg Jennings, Clay Matthews and Charles Woodson from injuries. How well they are playing in Week 17, not Week 11, will more than likely determined how well they play in the playoffs.

Here's a reason to panic. If at any time they face the Giants in the playoffs. These two teams have met three times in the past year and the Giants have scored 35, 37 and 38 points against the Green Bay defense, an average of 36.6 points a game. The Giants have averaged 419 yards of total offense in those games, and quarterback Eli Manning has averaged three touchdown passes a game.

The Packers, meanwhile, have averaged 22.6 points in those three games, have seen quarterback Aaron Rodgers sacked 11 times, have seen Rodgers twice lead the team in rushing and twice have not had a longer run than 13 yards from scrimmage. The Packers have also lost the turnover battle 7-3.

So you get the idea that the Giants are just not a good matchup for the Packers, and if they are to meet in the playoffs again this season there won't be a lot of reason for optimism. Panic, maybe. But not optimism.

News: The Badgers limp into the Big Ten Championship Game against Nebraska with a 4-4 conference record and 7-5 overall.

Views: Much has been made of Wisconsin's numerous close calls this season, losing four games by three points and one by a touchdown. The consensus seems to be this is just a team that isn't quite good enough. But are there bigger concerns here?

The Wisconsin website, uwbadgers.com, summed it up this way heading into this season when referring to Badgers head coach Bret Bielema:

The easy way to sum up Bret Bielema's six-year career as Wisconsin's head coach is to look at the numbers. Sixty wins, six bowl appearances, five times ranked in the final AP Top 25, two Big Ten titles and two trips to the Rose Bowl.

Yes, that would be the easy way. Here's another way to look at the numbers. This year, Wisconsin finished 1-4 against teams with a winning record. In his career, Bielema is 23-1 against traditional Big Ten bottom feeders Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Purdue and 15-18 against everyone else.

Heading into Saturday's Big Ten title game, his record is 11-14 against ranked teams, 1-5 against Ohio State, 2-4 against Michigan State, 1-3 against Penn State, 3-2 against Michigan, 2-2 against Iowa and 1-1 against Nebraska.

So is Bielema a coach whose career record is bloated because of a traditionally soft nonconference schedule supported by conference wins over teams he's supposed to beat? Or is he a coach who more often than not comes up short in his team's biggest games against quality opponents each season?

It depends, I guess, on which way you want to look at the numbers.

News: Notre Dame finishes unbeaten and will face either Alabama or Georgia in the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 7 in Miami.

Views: The way the schedule played out, these will be the two most deserving teams. But as we look ahead to the four-team playoff, we can see the problems already arising using this year as an example.

Florida, Oregon and likely Kansas State will all finish at 11-1. Whom do you sit among those three? What's more, the teams arguably playing the best football right now are Stanford and Texas A&M, each 10-2. So how much will the record alone matter? And if unbeaten Ohio State wasn't ineligible for postseason play, it would only further complicate the matter.

You'd have to be dead not to be excited about that bracket. There's just too much excitement to be generated and too much money to be made not to expand the upcoming four-team playoff. And the sooner it expands, the better for college football.

News: A report by Jon Heyman of cbssports.com says baseball executives believe former Brewers pitcher Zack Greinke, a free agent, is in line to become the highest-paid right-hander in baseball history. The numbers they're talking are $25 million a year, or roughly $150 million over six years.

Views: Zack Greinke may be worth that much if he pitched every game for the rest of his career in Miller Park (15-0, 2.93 ERA in 23 starts). But he can't and he's simply not that good. But timing is everything, and Greinke is being pursued by the Angels (deep pockets) and Dodgers (deeper pockets) in a year where the free agent pitching market is weak and he is the top pitcher available.

Good for him, but you do worry because that will be an awful lot of pressure on a person with anxiety disorder.

News: Both the Little Chute and Appleton West boys' basketball teams score big early season wins over state powers - the Mustangs over Dominican and West over De Pere.

Views: A very impressive start for two of our area's top teams. But this is where a high school coach's job gets tough. You want to use that success to instill confidence in your team while at the same time not allowing it to get to their heads. That's a tough balancing act and is just another reason why a high school coach's job is one of the most overly scrutinized yet underappreciated around.